It is looking increasingly likely that the biggest losers from the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition will be single parents.
The headline debate from the Tory Conference this week has of course been the rights and wrongs of cutting child benefit for those earning £44k or more. I personally think this is actually a good idea, generally speaking, and I was even surprised that individuals earning so much were eligible for such income. However, there is a clear inconsistency and unfairness to a single parent earning £44k and not receiving any child benefit while a couple earning £83k does.
David Cameron has so far been unable to communicate how this will be addressed which suggests that the problem has thus far been overlooked. I would expect some sort of compromise will be arranged but for now there is a clear demographic that is undeserving of specific punishment, if not ‘vulnerable’ in their own right.
On top of this slight, single parents will at some point during this parliamentary term see their tax payments go towards subsidising married couples. To be fair to the Conservatives, this will see them delivering a manifesto pledge (which is something that undemocratically many of their Government proposals are not).
It is the lack of flexibility of the Conservative proposals that worry me, the old-fashioned notion that the only way that a household should be is Dad, Mum, 2.4 kids and a big shaggy dog. Real life doesn’t work that way I’m afraid Dave. I know Conservatives are in favour of nuclear power, nuclear weapons but I didn’t think their dogma would also extend to an unswerving insistence on nuclear families.
And so I do hope that Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats can be a voice of reason in all of this. I understand that their position of junior partners does not give them sway in every policy and every deliverable that the coalition Government holds but surely, as it stands, this is an illiberal result.
Single parents, punished twice by their Government for simply not being cohabiting or married, is not how 21st century Britain should look.
#1 by Malc on October 5, 2010 - 5:52 pm
I think I agree… to an extent. But your terminology (and that of the MSM, and opposition parties) is something that I find, well… wrong.
I agree that cutting child benefits for those on sizeable income is probably right (and, like you, I didn’t think you got it if you were on such a sizeable income in the first place). And I agree that the tax break for married couples is, probably, not right (though I do stand to benefit!). But your classification of this as “punishment” for single parents is what I take issue with.
The Tories are incentivising marriage and families – that isn’t a surprise. They are REWARDING those who fulfil that criteria. I don’t think single parents are being PUNISHED for not being married – they just are not receiving the same benefit as those who ARE married. That’s not the same thing (at least in my mind).
#2 by Jeff on October 5, 2010 - 7:38 pm
I think punished is an appropriate term. In the tax system, you don’t get tax winners without having tax losers. You could say that single parents are ‘being rewarded less’ but punished is equally applicable.
Taxes from single parents are funding tax breaks for married couples and couples on 70-80k receive child credit when single parents on£45k do not.
I’m not saying it’s all bad as £45k to raise a family should be enough but there’s still something not quite right there that needs sorted.
On the other hand, single people funding marred couples is just plain wrong.
#3 by Caron on October 5, 2010 - 10:01 pm
Don’t get me started on this or my eyes will explode & I’ll start foaming at the mouth. There is nothing on this earth so stupid as giving a tax break to married couples. There is no difference between a married & cohabiting couple of whatever gender split & I do not want to see my taxe s go to pay for it.
Unfortunately this nonsense made it into the Coalition Agreement & we have right to abstain. I thought the one silver lining direness of our deficit related predicament was that we were too poor for it ever to see the light of day. I would be surprised if you could find one single Lib Dem prepared to support it so hopefully the idea will get put back under whichever fossil it was found.
Re Child Benefit & single parents, it’s not just single parents but households with one earner who lose out. It’s not fair. I reluctantly accept the principle of doing away with universality but have been banging on for days in a much similar tone to Jeff.
#4 by Malc on October 5, 2010 - 11:05 pm
Jeff, my distinction is more subtle. Married couples won’t receive a payment from govt, they’d simply pay less tax as a result of being married. Equally, single parents are not having their tax raised they are just not having their tax reduced. I can’t see how keeping something the same counts as a punishment when the net effect for them is neutral. But that is a semantic issue I guess.
On the Child Benefit thing, I recognise Caron’s issue – that single earning households will lose the benefit whereas dual-earners of around £88k will keep it – but I think that will be sorted before it comes to pass. As for the issue of universality, I’m less bothered. If you are trying to raise a family on £88k (or indeed, a single salary of, for the sake of argument, £50k, isn’t it reasonable to expect you should be able to do that without state aid? And that we should focus the benefits – particularly at a time of austerity – on those who really need state help?
#5 by Jeff on October 6, 2010 - 8:54 am
“Married couples won’t receive a payment from govt, they’d simply pay less tax as a result of being married.”
You do realise that that is the mootest of moot points as the difference is merely administrative? Receiving money from HMR&C and paying less to it are, to all intents and purposes, the same thing.
” Equally, single parents are not having their tax raised they are just not having their tax reduced. I can’t see how keeping something the same counts as a punishment when the net effect for them is neutral.”
The net effect is not neutral. Yes, singletons will pay the same tax each year but a part of their tax in Osborne’s ever shrinking budgets will go towards compensating for a tax break for the married. That’s money that would otherwise be going into schools or hospitals etc and surely cannot be right. You are trying to look at each person’s tax return individually but they need to be looked at across the board for fairness to be judged. If anything, married couples should be taxed MORE to reflect the domestic savings that cohabiting brings.
Apart from that I agree with what you say about universality and focussing on resources on those below the high income bracket and I certainly agree with Caron!
#6 by Malc on October 6, 2010 - 9:15 am
The effect of what you are saying I have no issue with. All I’m quibbling with is the semantics. You may call it a moot point, but I am that anal about words. And I still don’t agree. An administrative difference it may be, but its the difference between having to claim for something which you are entitled to and keeping what is yours by right to begin with (in your pay packet). I think that is different.
You are probably right in that I am looking at things individually, but I wasn’t making an argument in favour of the proposals, merely that your categorisation of them was different to mine.
Incidentally, you comment “If anything, married couples should be taxed MORE to reflect the domestic savings that cohabiting brings”. Really? Think about that one. I got married six months ago. I lived with my now-wife for 30 months before that. Because we are married, we should pay more in tax now than we did before? And we should pay more than you do, because we are married and you are co-habiting? Or have I read you wrongly, and you meant “cohabiting couples” in the first instance as well?
#7 by Jeff on October 6, 2010 - 9:31 am
Yep, I meant cohabiting. And it did come with a very heavy caveat of “if anything”.
#8 by Malc on October 6, 2010 - 9:37 am
Okay. The qualifying “if anything” makes a lot of sense too!
#9 by Indy on October 6, 2010 - 10:23 am
I think all the fuss about high earners losing child benefit is a piece of nonsense and is simply diversion from the real damage that coalition policies inflict on low earners and people on benefits. How many single parents earn above £44,000? I don’t know many – do you?
Re the tax break for married couples. It’s absolutely outrageous. It’s not only that it “incentivises” marriage which is something that a government has no business to be doing. There’s also an assumption that single parents have made a choice to be that way – that they have rejected marriage. That’s not so. My cousin’s wife recently died. He is now a single parent. He didn’t choose that, his wife flipping well died. Why should he pay more tax as a consequence of a personal tragedy? That makes me so angry I could spit.
#10 by Chris on October 6, 2010 - 5:16 pm
“I would be surprised if you could find one single Lib Dem prepared to support it so hopefully the idea will get put back under whichever fossil it was found.”
Mmmm, well I wouldn’t be surprised to see all 57 LibDem MPs going through the Division Lobby to support it.
If you earn £45k, have three children and only one of you works then you are not really that rich, are you? Losing £2.5k in child benefit is a bit of a serious blow.
#11 by Mike Shaughnessy on October 6, 2010 - 6:24 pm
I can’t say I agree with you Jeff.
http://haringeygreens.blogspot.com/2010/10/end-of-universal-welfare-state.html
Mike
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